How to change your username on X (Twitter), and why it won't let you

On x.com:

1. 1

   Open Settings and privacy

   Click More in the menu, then Settings and privacy.

2. 2

   Open Your account, then Account information

   X asks for your password before it shows your account information.

3. 3

   Open Username

   The row shows your current @username.

4. 4

   Type the new one and save

   Type it after the @, or pick one of X's suggestions, then click Save.

In X's iOS and Android apps, X's help gives Settings and privacy, then Account, then Username: type the new name and tap Done.

You don't need to deactivate your account for this. X's own deactivation screen says so: "If you just want to change your @username, you don’t need to deactivate your account — edit it in your settings."

Your @username isn't your display name, the name in bold above it. You change that one in Edit profile on your profile, and X's help says it "can be up to 50 characters long".

When x.com won't give you a name, it says "That username has been taken. Please choose another." and suggests others. It says that for any name X's server refuses, not only for names another account is using.

The reasons X's help gives:

• Another account uses it.
• A suspended or deactivated account holds it. X's help says: "Suspended and deactivated usernames are not immediately available for use".
• It's an inactive account's name. X says "we cannot release inactive usernames at this time". The exception is X's paid Handle Marketplace: what happens to deactivated and inactive accounts.
• It contains "Admin" or the platform's name. X's help says "Usernames containing the words X or Admin cannot be claimed". In 2022 the same sentence said "Twitter or Admin": it's about the name, not the letter x.
• It's too long or has other characters. x.com says: "Usernames can have letters, digits, and underscores, and must be 3–15 characters long."
• Your blue checkmark is under review. X's help says changing your username means "a temporary loss of the blue checkmark until your account is validated", and "No further changes to your profile photo, display name, or username will be allowed during this review period."

On length, X's help and x.com disagree. The help says a username "must be more than 4 characters long and can be up to 15 characters or less"; x.com's own check says 3 to 15. X's server decides, and only 15 as the maximum is certain.

If x.com says "Something went wrong. Please try again.", the save failed without a reason. Try again later.

X publishes no limit. Some websites give a figure, from twice a day to no limit at all, without citing X. The nearest limits X states are the checkmark review above and, on the Handle Marketplace, "one transfer every six months per account".

@usernames change far less often than display names. A study took 2.3 million accounts from a sample of about 1% of the posts of 28 September 2017, and checked each nine times over the first two weeks of October: changes to the display name were "nearly nine times" as common as changes to the @username. An earlier study found that 853,827 of 8.7 million accounts, about one in ten, changed their @username at least once in eight weeks of late 2013; it tracked accounts that had tweeted about news and sports events, not everyone.

Your followers, posts and messages stay. X's help says: "Changing your username will not affect your existing followers, Direct Messages, or replies. Your followers will simply see a new username next to your profile photo when you update."

X doesn't tell them. The same page suggests you "alert your followers before you change your username so they can direct replies or Direct Messages to your new username".

Your old name is free at once: "your previous username will immediately be available for use by someone else." If your new name comes from X's Handle Marketplace, X says the old one "is frozen for a period of time" instead.

Links are where it shows. We tried old links on 13 October 2026, logged out on x.com, with accounts X itself renamed (@TwitterDev is now @XDevelopers):

Old mentions keep the old text, and X doesn't say where they lead. Its Handle Marketplace help warns people who take a new handle there: "Old tags or links could break."

X doesn't redirect your old profile address. When it announced the Handle Marketplace in October 2025, its site said, as Decrypt reported: "In the future, we may offer redirect options for select accounts at an additional cost." X's help says nothing of it today.

And your profile keeps count. "About this account" shows how many times an account changed its username, with "Last on" and the month of the latest change: what "About this account" shows.

The 15-character limit is the oldest rule. The others came later:

A new username is never an unfollow. We match your followers by their account number, not their @username, so a follower who renames stays a follower. Before we tell you someone unfollowed, we usually ask X again whether they still follow you, under the @username X gives today for their account number.

For your followers and the accounts you follow, the @username we show catches up the next time we read that profile: your lists can show the old one for a while. An unfollow keeps the @username the account had when we found it, in the alert and in your list.

If you change yours, we pick it up at your next check. Your account is known to us by its number too, and our DMs go to that number, not to your @username.